The Alderman's Children

Chapter I

It had been said that the editor of the Express had made a plain rule that he should not be disturbed by business out of business hours. But the toughest oak has its fissure, and the hardest rule its exception ; so a few hours after his article had appeared in print the disconcerted writer, who was still in bed, received this note from his chief — "Your leader has been a trumpet-blast with a vengeance, for it has roused Dr. Snow from the dead. Please come round and ex plain. A messenger has been sent us from the Home Office." Let those journalists, who have ever written a brilliant article, only to discover that one of its essential points was based on vol. in. wrong information, sympathize with Hugh's sensations as he tumbled into his clothes. He went off to the Albany, prepared to find his chief as excited as he was.

But he found him asleep. The great man's valet had to rouse him, and the comments which he made were few : "You had better go to the Home Office." So spake he, and turned on his pillow again. The next thing was that Hugh Armstrong, Ramshart, and Mrs. Greyling all found them selves at Whitehall together. There they obtained proof positive that Albert Snow was alive. Next Mabel had to be summoned — in what state of mind can be imagined — to produce the letter in which her husband's death had been notified to her by the governor of Portland, as she believed. This missive was recognized as a forgery on the spot. Mabel had then to relate how the letter had been posted to the address of her brother, Chauncey Travers, and how she had received it from his hands. Thereupon she was shown the following telegram from the governor of Portland : — " Albert Snow alive.

Cannot account for report of death otherwise than by fact that his wife died lately. Surprised that news paper speaks of her as living. News of her death sent me by her brother, named ravers. One must pass over the wonder, consterna tion and agony endured by the different actors in the scene which had a room at the Home Office for its stage. The Official who con ducted the inquiry was Lord Champlesse. The Home Secretary being in ithe country, his lordship had been telegraphed for from Henley, and surprised was he to find Hugh Armstrong, Ann Harrowell's betrothed, mixed up in this business. But inexpressibly more astonished was he, when, on remarking that he should like to see this Mr. Travers, who appeared to have been acting sus piciously, Hugh whispered to him that Mr. Travers was residing in Charlie Harrowell's house.

" Why how comes it that he and Mr. Harrowell are such friends ? " " Because Harrowell was engaged to be married to Mrs. Snow," murmured, Hugh glancing toward Mabel, who sat in a corner of the room blanched of all colour and bereft of speech. " What ?" exclaimed the Under Secretary in a strident tone, and he was on the point of blurting out, " Why, Harrowell once made love to my own sister, the Hon. Miss Champion." But he stopped himself. " Mrs. Snow believed her husband to be dead," continued Hugh. " Poor woman, her plight must be fearful ! Just look at her." Lord Champlesse gave a snort of disgust. He was not going to look at anybody. He was like a golden pheasant with his feathers all ruffled from contact with vulgar birds. How dared this fellow Harrowell behave as he had done after having got his name con nected with Miss Champion's ?

However, Lord Champlesse was too good an official to let his private concerns interfere with his conduct of public affairs. The task that lay before him during the absence of his chief was to inquire whether there were prima facie grounds for supposing the royal prerogative of mercy would have to be exercised on behalf of Albert Snow. His official instinct forewarned him that the public were going to raise ' a tempestuous outcry over this case, and when he had heard Mrs. Greyling, Hugh, and Ramshart, he perceived that this same unmanageable beast, the Public, would infallibly bolt with the per suasion of Snow's innocence between its teeth. For all this, no waxwork figure could have exhibited more outward imper viousness than Lord Champlesse. " What we have heard is not legal evidence," he said, addressing Hugh and Ramshart, and ignoring Mabel.

" Never theless, there exists such strong presumption in the prisoner's favour, that I shall telegraph, begging the Secretary of State to come up to town, and I shall order the Governor of Portland to bring Albert Snow to Millbank." " Will you please give us an order to see Dr. Snow when he arrives ? " ask Ramshart. "Under all the circumstances — yes," answered Lord Champlesse cautiously. " I think the convict is entitled to have an interview with his wife. She has been reported to him as dead ; it is only right that he should be allowed to satisfy himself that she is alive." The Curate urged that he and Mr. Arm strong, would also like to see the convict. Lord Champlesse pondered, painfully anxious to do his duty, but no more. "Well, yes," he said. " Under these very special cir cumstances, the convict should be permitted to communicate with his friends ; but please beware of raising any hopes in the man.

I cannot take it upon myself to say what the Secretary of State may or may not do." One more question Lord Champlesse asked. " Will you give me an address to which a letter from this department can be sent if necessary ? Where does Mrs. Snow live ? " " I do not know where I shall be to morrow," said Mabel, almost inaudibly. "Will you write to me?" interposed the curate. He foresaw that Mabel would need his support during the coming time, and she thanked him by a look. " Then we are to consider you, Mr. Ramshart, as the representative of the con vict's friends ? " said Lord Champlesse, just glancing towards Mabel for her assent. "Quite so," answered the curate, redden ing at his responsibilities. " Very well ; then you will get a letter to-morrow morning, as soon as we are informed that the convict is in London, and it will contain an order admitting you, Mrs. Snow, and Mr. Armstrong to Millbank.

I think that is all." Ramshart held the door open for Mabel to pass out, and she descended the stair case alone, for the curate and Hugh were detained at the top of the stairs by Mrs. Greyling. Somebody had told this lady that she ran a good chance of being hanged as an accessory to a murder after the fact, and she wanted the two men to assure her, upon their honour bright, that this was all nonsense. Among persons of Mrs. Grey ling's class there is not much veneration for Government, which is only associated in their minds with tax-collecting, but there is a lively terror of the law. Mrs. Greyling had not been overawed by the Under Secretary in his frock coat and patent leather boots, but the vision of a robed judge with a gallows-tree in the background loomed very large and red on her view.

With a pinched face she whimpered — " They won't get me into trouble for this, will they gentlemen? I've spoken the truth, but if I thought " "No, no; don't be afraid," they both said. And Hugh Armstrong added, " Tell the truth and shame the devil, Mrs. Greyling." " I don't know about shaming the devil, sir," echoed the poor woman. " It must take a deal to do that, seeing the way he treated my brother William, such a respect able family man, too, once upon a time." " I mean you must not go back on a word you have uttered," exclaimed Hugh, lifting a forefinger. " Recollect, you now hold the life of an innocent man in your hands." " Yes, sir. I couldn't forget that, if the rope were round my neck. When I heard that Dr. Snow was alive, I could have dropped ; and oh ! Mr. Ramshart, sir, his wife, • that kind-looking . lady, she gave me such stares I couldn't bear it.

Please ask her to forgive me, and say I couldn't help it. If she had a brother who'd done something wrong, she wouldn't give him up to be hung, would she ? " "Come now, don't cry," was all the two men could say ; and they had to leave Mrs. Greyling weeping on the stairs, while they ran down to overtake Mrs. Snow. Mabel was standing on the pavement at the Home Office door between the two sentries in scarlet coats. Her veil was down, and through the black gauze her eyes wandered absently. It was a great relief to Ramshart and Hugh, who knew not what to say to her, that she spoke first, and asked them if they could help her to find her brother. Indistinctly she mentioned that her brother had gone to Portland, and that this shocking mystery would have to be cleared up ; then she inquired when she would be allowed to see her husband.

But she was quite bewildered, and hardly knew what she was saying. " We will accompany you to the door of your hotel," proposed Hugh compassionately. " It is not far." " Thank you ; perhaps we shall find my brother at the hotel," answered Mabel, quickening her step. Even then she could not realize that her brother had intentionally practiced such heartless deceptions upon her. There must be some horrible mistake which would be elucidated by and by. It was afternoon, and as they walked up Whitehall, they were met by visible signs of the public interest which Albert Snow's case was already exciting. The contents bills of the evening papers bore in large capitals, to the exclusion of all other matter, "THE KILBURN MURDER — DR. SNOW ALIVE." Hugh had to brush away a boy who flourished a paper in Mabel's face yelling — " Buy a Pall Mall, mum ?

Full report of the trial in which Dr. Snow was sentenced to be hung. Only a penny." As they approached the hotel, Mabel hesitated, fearful to go in alone. She was then thinking of Charlie. Ramshart, observ ing that she held back, offered to enter and ask whether anybody was awaiting her. He had hardly passed the door before he saw Charlie Harrowell pacing moodily in the hall, with several evening papers — pink, buff, and white — crunched up under his arm. " I say, what does all this mean ? exclaimed Charlie, whose face was distorted with con sternation. " Where is Mabel ? " " She is outside ; but, Harrowell, you must spare her. Be a man ! " " Yes, but all this must be explained," cried Charlie ; and he was down the steps of the hotel in a moment. Mabel shrank, and did not hold out her hand, but he took it and almost forced her to abandon her arm to him as he walked back into the house, Hugh following.

A difficulty ensued in finding a room where the party could be alone. The reading-room and ladies'-room had many persons in it. A waiter raced about, leading the party from passage to passage, while he looked for an empty sitting-room that could be spared during half an hour. Hugh availed himself of this interval to lag behind and repeat the curate's warning to Charlie. "You had better go back to Henley, old man. It's all over now between you and Mrs. Snow, as you may see." " But I must know what it all means," repeated Charlie, in desperation. " Where is Travers ? He said he was going away for twenty-four hours, and he ought to be back now. I've been here an hour and a half, and I've sent a commissionaire to his chambers and to his office. His office is shut up, and it seems that yesterday he took away all his luggage from his chambers."

"Travers is a bad un," said Hugh, who had no more doubts on that point. " You shall hear presently all that was told about him at the Home Office." Up to that moment it had not crossed Charlie's mind that Travers was a villain. "In what sense do you call him a bad un ? " he asked, halting in the passage with a blank stare. " In the worst sense, and we have not found out all about him yet. But he appears to have laid a trap for you, Charlie. It was he who deceived Mrs. Snow into thinking her husband was dead, and at the same time he informed that unhappy man at Portland that his wife had died." "Why, I gave Travers twenty thousand pounds yesterday," exclaimed Charlie, staggered. " You gave him twenty thousand pounds ?" and Hugh pursed up his lips for a whistle. " Then I do not think we need trouble our selves to hunt for the fellow.

If I had only had an inkling of this two days ago ! " A sitting-room was found at last. Some women in Mabel's predicament would have fainted, and a swoon saves a great deal of explanation. But trouble had so long dogged Mabel's footsteps, that to find the demon once more pursuing her with fangs uplifted to rend her, caused her only to turn round as it were and prepare with what courage she might for a new struggle. As she lifted her veil her eyes were swimming in tears, but she made an heroic attempt to control herself. " You have heard, Mr. Harrowell, that my husband is still living ? " she said with gentle dignity. " I cannot explain the de ception that was played upon us." " But you must be able to explain some thing, Mabel," cried Charlie. " What is all this I hear about your brother ?

" " My brother must speak for himself," she replied, wiping her tears away. " I only ask you to believe that I was no party to this." " And must everything be at an end between us ? " pleaded he in agony. Had not Hugh and Ramshart been present, he would have adjured her to fly with him out of the country. Travers's iniquities vanished from his mind as he looked at her, so pitiable, but so lovely and brave in this trial. " Mabel, let me speak with you a moment alone," he faltered, drawing nearer to her. She shook her head, but he seized her hand, and when she withdrew it, he broke into a passion of grief. He had never loved her so much as in the moment he was going to lose her ; and what wild things he said had their excuse in his utter despair. " If there was any truth in the love you vowed, you can prove it now," he said im ploringly.

" Let us go away together ; your husband can get a divorce, and then we will be married. After what has passed between us, you cannot return to your husband and say that you love him. If he hears of our engagement, he will never believe in your love. Why, then, go back to be spurned by him ? Come with me, and I will cherish you and protect you against the world ? " She turned away, attempting no answer. How could she speak ? " Which do you love ; him or me ? " in sisted Charlie, madly. He was heedless of his friends, heedless of everything except this, that if Mabel did not yield to him, then he would be parted from her for ever. The creeper is not to be torn from the tree without a wrench, though the tree be blasted. Mabel's heart was now dead to Charlie Harrowell, but every tendril of his own heart clung to it.

Hugh Armstrong and the curate had to interfere, and at a beseeching sign which Mabel made them, they led Charlie, weakly resisting, out of the room. Mabel was left standing alone. But not long, for after a few minutes there was a timid rap at the door, and the curate returned, red, breathless, but eager in his sympathy and proffer of good offices. " Armstrong has taken him off in a cab," he said. " And now, if there is anything I can do for you " " My kind, true friend ! " Mabel murmured with streaming eyes, and holding his hand. " I must leave this hotel at once. Every room in it will be filled now with un bearable memories. Take me to some place near the prison where my husband will be brought." " Indeed I will," he answered. His know ledge of London hotels was very limited, but he was not going to baulk her first request by a difficulty.

" Then, will you wait for me whilst I go and pack ? I shall not be long. You won't leave the house, will you ? I do so want to feel a friend near me." He promised, and utilized the short time of her absence to make inquiries of the hall porter, by whom he was informed that a large hotel flourished close to the Houses of Parliament. Mabel soon came down, wearing the plain black dress and grey waterproof which used to be her walking attire at Finsbury Park. A four-wheeled cab was called, and they drove to the new hotel together, but not a word passed between them either as to Charlie Harrowell or as to Travers. Mabel felt that she was with a man who trusted her wholly, and for whom the offering of explanations would be superfluous. To any person of understanding and sympathy her situation was indeed suffi ciently plain.

Mabel spoke, however, of her husband. Would she be allowed to see him freely, or only from behind a grating again ? Was it sure that he would obtain a pardon, and when would it be granted ? On this last point the curate expressed his decided con viction that the pardon must be signed within a day or two. Public opinion would not brook any delay in the matter, and would insist that Dr. Snow should receive a pecuniary com pensation for his unjust imprisonment. " We shall need that sadly," remarked Mabel with candour. "We have nothing to begin life again with." Her thoughts were that, even if her brother should return and make a proffer of assistance, she would never more accept a penny from him. All his wickedness was now manifest in her sight, though her mind could not dwell on the details of it.

J VOL. III. " You will not be suffered to want," said the curate, though his assurance proceeded rather from faith than reflection ; and when he parted from her at the door of the hotel, he told her again to be of good cheer. " I will call upon you to-morrow, as soon as I hear from the Home Office," were his words as he helped her out of the cab. " And you will come with me to the prison ? " "Yes, if you wish it. Good night, Mrs. Snow. God bless you ! " It was no more than the curate expected that Mabel should have turned a deaf ear to Charlie Harrowell's insensate appeals, and should have resolved to go back to her injured husband ; but there was something in the calmness of her purpose which won his admiration. She had not debated the point by expressing any fears lest her husband should be unwilling to take her back after she had been engaged to another.

Had she broached that subject, he would have been puzzled what to answer, for his own mind misgave him as to the view which Albert Snow might take of his wife's conduct. But she had sought no comfort from him. Her anxieties were locked in her own bosom. They broke out when she was by herself in her lonely hotel room, and when, with clasped hands, she surveyed herself in the glass, fascinated by the pallor of her own face, and curiously wondering how many more blows like that which she had just received it would take to kill her. Her spirit, like the dove before the Flood was abated, found no place on which to rest. It could but circle distractedly over the dark waters.

Chapter II

It was one of the first consequences of Chauncey Travers's disappearance that it led Hugh Armstrong to think very intently over the circumstances which had attended Alderman Harrowell's sudden death. When he returned with Charlie to the empty house at Highbury, he had to witness another frantic outpouring of his friend's grief, and Charlie ended by vowing that he would wait until Mabel were free, and then marry her. Her husband was consumptive, and could not live long. "If I have to wait one year or ten years she shall be my wife ! " exclaimed Charlie, hysterically. "She loves me in her heart, and I will show her how constant I can be." Now Hugh Armstrong had no doubt that Mabel was innocent of collusion with her brother ; but he took a common-sense view of the whole affair. Charlie could not be allowed to sacrifice all his prospects in order that he might some day marry the sister of such a one as Chauncey Travers.

Even if Mabel became free within a few months, she would be no fit wife for a man in young Harrowell's position, and since there now existed an impassable barrier between them, it was most desirable that this barrier should be further raised so as to remain for ever insurmountable. Accordingly, when Charlie had become a little cooler, Hugh began to dilate on the atrocious villainy of Travers's actions. But this only revived Charlie's excitement. He had so long stood up for Travers that his vanity was now involved in defending him to the end. He did not care a bit, he said, for the loss of his twenty thousand pounds. If Travers had asked him frankly for that sum, to make a fresh start in life, he would have given it him without hesitation : in fact, Travers had not begged for the money in the first instance, it was Charlie himself who had offered it, and there was no saying but that he might spend it after all on the purposes for which it had been lent.

As for Travers's audacious deceptions — well, Travers was fond of his sister, and had naturally pitied her for being tied to a man who was never likely to get out of prison. " A sentence of penal servitude for life ought to carry a divorce with it ! " exclaimed Charlie, who was too unreasonable to be argued with. " Travers thought his brother-in-law guilty, or in any case dead and buried, so far as the world was concerned, and if it had not been for the accidental discovery of Snow's innocence " " Mrs. Snow would have been made to commit bigamy," interrupted Armstrong. " She would have become my wife, be lieving that she was a widow, and there would have been no crime in that," answered Charlie. " We should have gone to live abroad. Snow would have had grounds for a divorce, and after the divorce, Mabel and I would have got married again regularly.

I think that would have been the happiest thing for us all." " But, my dear fellow, you must see the scoundrelism of having tricked poor Snow into thinking that his wife was dead," argued Hugh. " Mabel, on her side, would never have suffered herself to think of you if she had not imagined she was free ; but now this rascally brother of hers, after inflicting an infamous stab on Snow's feelings, has destroyed her character in her husband's sight. All the patient loving-kindness which she displayed during four years will be for gotten. If he hears of her engagement to you, he will conclude that she was not true to him ; and he may even entertain some horrible suspicion that she connived at her brother's plot." " That's why I asked Mabel to come away with me," retorted Charlie, in a reckless tone.

" The mischief has been done, and our wisest course would have been to make the best of it. If Mabel is only going back to a man whom she no longer loves, and who will overwhelm her with reproaches, it would be much better that she should get a divorce, and exile herself with me." Charlie was as one pushed into a corner, who beats the air with his hands. He was not so depraved as his words seemed to indicate, but, feeling that he held an un tenable position, he was battling with a desperate obstinacy to maintain it. Arm strong, however, deemed his mood a very dangerous one. He was too manly himself to think that a young fellow like Charlie ought to be indulged in sheltering himself behind subterfuges to evade a recognition of plain facts, and to screen himself from moral obligations. He thought over the whole affair again, and saw how craftily Travers's plans had been laid.

Had it not been for the hazard of Dadge's death, all his schemes must have succeeded ; but this brought up another thought, namely, that the first meshes of Travers's plot had been woven during Alderman Harrowell's lifetime, and that the removal of Mr. Harrowell had been necessary to make the meshes close completely around Charlie. " Charlie, just collect yourself for what I am going to say," began Hugh very solemnly, after an interval of silence. " You have now a grave duty before you, which is to find out how your father died." " Why, what is this new thing?" ejaculated Charlie, changing colour. They were in the study, where Mrs. Harrowell's portrait stood. The picture had lately been covered with a holland cloth preparatory to removal, and Charlie, by a mechanical movement, had just drawn away the drapery from the upper frame so that the face stood out with its mild eyes fixed on him.

" There are several suspicious circum stances about your father's death," proceeded Hugh, "and if you will sit down, I will recapitulate them." But Charlie remained standing — he was in the mood for doing the exact contrary of that which he was bidden do to. Hugh therefore went on. " First and foremost, everybody agrees that, excepting for his slight quarrel with you and Ann, your father had no care that could prompt him to suicide. He goes to bed one evening, and the chain of the house-door is fastened. Next morning very early, when the maids come downstairs, the chain is found loose, which at least allows of the supposition that somebody may have been in the house during the night, and have let himself out in the morning. ... A bag of vours dis appears from a peg in the hall, but is discovered after Travers had possession of the house, and it turns up in this room, which again favours the idea that the bag may have been carried out of the house with something in it, and may afterwards have been brought back."

" But it seems to me that you are accusing Travers of having murdered my father," ejaculated Charlie, thunderstruck. " Wait and hear me to the end," an swered Hugh. "You lose your latch-key in Travers's company, and it is found in the Upper Street of Islington on the morning when your father died. It was not dropped in the cab which drove you and Travers from Richmond, for I have questioned the driver, and he would not have concealed the truth. The key was dropped, or purposely thrown away in Islington on the Monday morning, and it cannot have lain many minutes in the road before it was picked up by a printer's workman returning from night duty ; for there were no marks of carriage wheels upon it. Lastly, your father cashed a five hundred pound cheque on the day before his death, and several of the notes which he received at the bank have been traced to Paris.

Now I could have sworn that I saw Travers in Paris a day or two after your father's death, though he denies it. I particularly noticed him at the railway station in Paris, and on board the Channel steamer. His was no common face, and, taking one thing with the other, I suspect now that he may well have run over to Paris for a few hours to get rid of his notes among the many money-changers of that city. There's no place where English notes can be so easily disposed of as in Paris." "Good God! what you are saying is awful," hoarsely exclaimed Charlie, who had been listening with an affrighted countenance ; " but — but I say I think it is abominable to bring a charge of murder against a man just in an off-hand way, and on mere guessing." " Travers has acted infamously, and if I am wrong in suspecting him, the fault rests with him for having shown himself to be a miscreant.

At all events, Charlie, after what I have stated, your own course is plain — you must put away all thoughts of Mrs. Snow from your mind, and you must set yourself to clear up the truth." " Of course it shall be cleared up. Call in the police ; do anything you like ! " cried Charlie, in the direst nervous agitation. " I'll be bound you have only got hold of a mare's nest, but I suppose everything is fair against a man who is down." Hugh Armstrong was not moved by this outburst, but suggested that the work of detection should be commenced at once. " I understand that your poor father was found lying upon an indiarubber mackintosh which was not known to belong to him. Could I see this waterproof ? " " I dare say you could. I think it is up stairs folded in the cupboard with the other things. I ought to tell you, though, that the question about this mackintosh was investigated at the inquest and the jury made nothing of it.